BA boss and both his wives united in death

By any standard, it is a fitting final chapter in an extraordinary saga of love, money and marriage. Five years after the death of Lady Thatcher's favourite businessman, British Airways' formidable boss Lord King - who left express instructions that he wished to be buried next to his beloved first wife, Lorna - his widow, Isabel, is going to be interred with them as well.

Formidable: The late British Airways chief Lord King

In a move which some may consider unusual, even in these days of multiple marriages, Lord King's second wife - the spirited and well-born daughter of the 8th Viscount Galway - made known before she died from cancer last week at the London Clinic at the age of 83 that she too wanted to be united in death with her husband.

King was so distressed by Lorna's death that after she died in 1969, the self-made ball-bearings tycoon placed around her neck a £20,000 pearl necklace which he had promised for her next birthday.

She was wearing the necklace as she was laid to rest in the leafy churchyard of 12th-century St Michael and All Angels' Church, Wartnaby, near his 2,000-acre estate in Leicestershire.

The Hon Isabel Monckton-Arundell first met King while out hunting, and the funeral will be at St Michael's, close to some of their favourite Belvoir country, even though she came to dislike the estate and moved out after her husband's death in 2005 to a new home near Peterborough.

'Although she was not fond of Wartnaby, she was a wonderful hostess, poised and elegant,' recalls a friend. 'She was a good fisherman and a good chum of Prince Charles, who used the house as his hunting box.'

Says the vicar of St Michael's, the Rev Jeff Hopewell, who will conduct the service: 'Lord King and his first wife are buried side by side, but his widow is being cremated and her ashes will be interred in or very near the same plot.'

Notwithstanding Lord King's great love for Lorna, with whom he had four children - he expressed to friends in later years a desire to be reunited with her - he married Isabel the year after Lorna died.

They remained together for 35 years until his death at 87, but had no children. He left a £28 million fortune.

Beacham burns her bonce

Bad hair day: Stephanie Beacham sporting a hat at the party

One-time soap glamourpuss Stephanie Beacham has an extra reason to be grateful to her new love - a doctor - after she burned herself just days before going into the Celebrity Big Brother house.

The actress, 62, knocked over a saucepan of boiling water in her kitchen, and somehow managed to scald both her head and a leg.

'She wasn't so much bothered about the pain but about the fact that she had just spent £250 on a new hairdo, so she was cross as well as hurt,' says a friend who bumped into Stephanie shortly afterwards at a party at record producer Lisa Voice's London home.

'Her new partner insisted on pouring cold water over her scalded head, but she was very reluctant to let him because it would further ruin her coiffure - she'd had it straightened specially for her Big Brother entrance - but he absolutely insisted.'

Until recently, Stephanie - best remembered as the bitchy Sable Colby in Dynasty - was famous for her toy-boy partners. But her new man, unusually, is seven years her senior.

Stephanie says coyly: 'It makes such a change to date someone around my own age.'

One of the few jollies that MPs actually pay for themselves - their annual ski race against their Swiss counterparts at Davos - is sadly depleted this year.

Fewer than a dozen, I gather, will be there this week, blaming the new Commons timetable, which sees Parliament resuming today - and perhaps fearing public disapproval, too.

'The event always takes place the first week of January, but this year the House is back sitting tomorrow until Thursday, so a lot of people decided it wouldn't be worth coming just for the weekend,' says Tory Charles Hendry, chairman of the parliamentary ski group.

'It's not just the skiing we're here for - we have meetings with the Swiss MPs. Plus, it doesn't cost the taxpayer anything.'

Which must be a first...

I have good news and bad news for the Duchess of York.

The good news is that the company due to publish a book about the brutality of Turkish orphanages that landed the Duchess in a diplomatic row has just gone into administration.

However, less cheeringly for Fergie, publication of the book, Undercover, by former ITN investigative reporter Chris Rogers, for which she originally wrote the foreword, is nevertheless going ahead as planned.

Fergie, who made a TV documentary with Rogers about conditions in orphanages in Turkey, subsequently fell out with the journalist after her involvement provoked a dispute between Britain and Turkey.

The Turkish authorities complained that she entered the country and filmed illegally. In September, she appointed the Queen's lawyers, Farrer & Co, to get the book stopped so the furore, she hoped, would die down. But the case stalled more than two months ago.

This week, Rogers learned that publishers Authentic Media had gone into administration but, he tells me, they have now been successfully purchased by another company.

'My book will be coming out in March as originally planned,' he says.

Miss Dellal's a single gal

Love split: Model Alice Dellal

It looks like grunge model Alice Dellal, 23, has made a New Year's resolution. For I learn the granddaughter of property magnate 'Black' Jack Dellal has parted from her tattoo-covered boyfriend, gallery owner Ross Tanner.

Friends found out about the split courtesy of Tanner, who reset his status on social-networking site Facebook to 'single', adding that he was now 'looking for friendship and dating'.

Perhaps it is only coincidence the break comes so soon after reports that Alice, who was previously linked to Princess Caroline's son Pierre Casiraghi, is the sometime girlfriend of Sir Mick Jagger's son James, with whom she shares a house in Kilburn.

Either way, news of her break-up with Tanner is likely to come as a relief to Alice's parents, Andrea and Guy Dellal, who have become exasperated with their gamine daughter's louche behaviour.

Says a spokeswoman for Alice: 'James and Alice are friends and have always been friends and nothing more. Regarding her personal relationships, she prefers to keep them private.'

Lively India Hicks, Lord Mountbatten's granddaughter, has a conundrum in her attempts to train for the London Marathon from her home on tiny Harbour Island in the Bahamas.

'As the island is only three miles long by half-a-mile wide, marathon training can be frustrating,' India, 41, tells The Lady magazine. However, there are advantages when it comes to the school run for her children.

'I was chauffeured to school in a custom-coloured Rolls-Royce,' explains Prince Charles's goddaughter. 'Our dash is done on a golf cart with the occasional traffic hazard of a wandering horse or cockerel.'

PS

Former LibDem leader Sir Menzies Campbell's wife Elspeth might be turning 70 today, but she sees no reason to turn down the volume.

'I certainly don't intend to quieten down. Indeed, now that Ming is no longer leader, I feel more able to say what I like,' says Lady Campbell, who once gave Nick Clegg a handbagging when he dared to suggest he'd like to lead the LibDems.

Adds Elspeth, who will unwrap a blue Diane von Furstenberg jacket from her romantic husband today: 'Retirement is not something I'm even contemplating.'